Reality is a lie. Lying, therefore, makes this world go around. Accept it. Embrace it. Understand it fully. And most importantly, lie well and for all the right reasons.

We Need To Have Another Talk

No, once again I’m not talking about the not-so-fresh-feeling although this is very similar in many respects. I know, I know, I keep deferring that talk — but can you blame me? It’s not an easy topic to broach. I’ll get to it — I promise — you know I’d never lie to you. So be patient.

No, this talk is about some hard-core lying and our friend Kate Pomeroy has some coming clean and fessing up to do. I happened upon an interesting website yesterday while researching Ukraine, Russia and Crimea. Regardless of who runs this website, you can’t argue with great evidence proving lies. I’ve suspected all along that many of these anti-American, pro-Russian websites in the alternative media are spreading blatant lying propaganda but I wasn’t aware of the blatant transparent extent of it. Here’s an example article from the website StopFake.org.

Fake with the help of video-editing: Ukrainian journalist said that 1.5 million residents of Donbas should be killed

July 31 Russian TV channel LifeNews showed a video fragment from the program of Ukrainian channel hromadske.tv. In this fragment Ukrainian journalist Bohdan Butkevych allegedly said the following: “Donbas is not just a depressed region. There we have a large complex of problems. And the main thing is that there are an incredible number of useless people there. I am aware of what I am talking. Speaking only about the Donetsk Region, there are approximately 4 million people there and at least 1.5 million of useless people. I want to say that we do not have to understand Donbas. We have to understand the Ukrainian national interest. It seems to me that Donbas should be used as a resource. I have no full-fledged formula what we have to do quickly, but the main thing that we have to do now, no matter how cruel it would sound, in Donbass there is a certain category of people that should be just killed”.

Then the LifeNews TV anchorman says that the journalist of Hromadske was not embarrassed at all with Butkevych’s statements and that she was listening very attentively. The news item was captioned: “Double-dyed fascism. A Ukrainian journalist said that 1.5 million residents of Donbas should be killed”.

The same day TV channel Russia 24 issued the similar news item.

Journalists of Russian Channel One also mentioned Butkevych in their evening news. Unlike their colleagues they did not give Butkevych’s “direct speech”, but mentioned him in the news item about the session of Verkhovna Rada. After the member of the parliament Liashko refused to comment on the session saying: “I express my opinion to journalists, not to goebbelses”, voiceover of the Kyiv correspondent of Channel One says: “Kyiv Nazi and journalist Bohdan Butkevych expressed his opinion to one of the liberal channels. He said – I am quoting – “about useless people in Donbas and that such people should be killed”. The reaction of an anchorwoman is astonishing, she does not even interrupt undisguised fascist speech”.

This news about a journalist allegedly proposing to kill more than a million people spread around Internet as well.

We decided to examine what was that the Ukrainian journalist said to hromadske.tv and why anchorwoman Nastia Stanko was not embarrassed with his words.

The source of the Russian channels news is a video which is entitled “Bohdan Butkevych. Everything is simple. We just need to kill 1.5 million of Donbas residents” and is lasting 49 seconds.

Firstly, after watching the video you can notice with an unaided eye three edit transitions. It means that this is not the whole monolog, but four different fragments of it. Something like that: fragment 1 – transition 1 – fragment 2 – transition 2 – fragment 3 – transition 3 – fragment 4.

Secondly, there exists an original video lasting 31 minutes and 52 seconds. Even if you exclude from it 7-minute Skype-conversation with another journalist (from 1:40 to 8:40), you can see that, comparing to edited 49-second video, the interview with Butkevych is 20 times longer.

Special attention should be paid to the video starting from 19 minute. “Donbas is not just a depressed region. There we have a large complex of problems. And the main thing is that THERE ARE AN INCREDIBLE NUMBER OF USELESS PEOPLE THERE, first of all IN ECONOMY. THEY CANNOT BE PROVIDED WITH A JOB. That is because the economy structure, constructed there, is so inefficient. When you communicate with Metinvest officials off the record, they will tell you a lot of interesting. I AM AWARE OF WHAT I AM TALKING. SPEAKING ONLY ABOUT THE DONETSK REGION, THERE ARE APPROXIMATELY 4 MILLION PEOPLE THERE AND AT LEAST 1.5 MILLION OF THEM ARE USELESS PEOPLE. THEY WILL NEVER HAVE A JOB THERE”(…) “DONBAS IS OUR RESOURCE. AND IT IS OUR PROBLEM THAT WE CANNOT USE IT. WE GIVE THIS RESOURCE TO THE BUNCH OF WELL-TO-DO MONSTERS FROM PARTY TOP BUREAUCRACY, which joined the local criminal clans” (…). THERE IS A CERTAIN CATEGORY OF PEOPLE THAT JUST SHOULD BE KILLED. UNFORTUNATELY WE CANNOT MAKE AN AGREEMENT WITH THEM. I WAS IN SLOVIANSK AND I WAS TRYING TO TALK TO THEM. THE MAJORITY OF REBELS NEED ECONOMIC ALTERNATIVE. Donbas always went on a strike for “food”. If you give them “food”, they will stop protests”. In the context of the abovementioned we can understand that Butkevych proposed to “kill” terrorists.

The journalist reacted to the publication of the edited video and wrote on his Facebook page: “As for killing. I said that terrorists, who took guns and with whom we cannot make an agreement, should be killed”. As Nastia Stanko was listening to Bohdan Butkevych not for 49 seconds, but for more than 20 minutes, she understood that he was talking about terrorists that should be killed and – apart – about 1.5 million useless people that have no job. That is why she is so calm.

Thirdly, this interview was recorded on April 29, 2014 and the edited video was uploaded to Internet on July 31, that is after 3 month. And 3-month old video occupied some of the most popular Russian TV channels. Not going into details of news standards, we will just say that news journalists call yesterday news “antiquity”. Why Russian main channels suddenly showed in their news the fragment of 3-month old video – this is a question rather of editorial policy than news standards.

I don’t know about you, but that’s pretty god-damned, over-the-top, beyond-the-pale treachery and deceit. But what’s even worse are the cretins who amplify such obvious lying propaganda in Western spaces by championing blogs that carry and endorse such deceit. I say cretins because all of this has been brought to their attention on numerous occasions and they still continue to endorse those blogs. In otherwords, they are complicit and, imo, therefore traitorous. They should be held to account, imo. Not that they will be. The alphabet agencies are too busy doing everything but their jobs, so they obviously can’t be bothered.

For those who need clarification concerning that last paragraph because you’re either new to this blog or you’ve been reading all along but still don’t get it, many Western ( allegedly) anti-American, pro-Russian blogs in the alternative media have referenced the blog The Vineyard of the Saker as a competent, objective, professional and authoritative source on many things, but most especially this Ukrainian crisis. The Saker’s blog continuously gets admiring honorable mentions at Moon of Alabama blog, Ian Stirling Ireland Lang Simeone Celsius Welch blog and Pat Lang’s Sic Semper Tyrannis blog. Pat Lang’s referencing and endorsing of The Vineyard of the Saker blog is especially telling and damning considering the Colonel’s resume. Where are the alphabet agencies? Where are you? I know you’re reading me and have read me — so I’m asking you — what the fuck are you doing if you’re not doing your job? Or is your job just to watch and report? If so, I want my money back because I don’t see how that’s constructive in any way. I’m watching and observing and American taxpayers aren’t paying me and I’m reporting to the world and not to secret select groups of people who will never do a thing about it because — because why? Maybe because they’re complicit too. What else could explain it, and don’t hand me the incompetence bullshit. I’m not buying it. Not anymore, if I ever did.

Whew! Now that I have that off my broad chest, let me show you The Vineyard of the Saker blog’s headline story today. I bet you can guess what it is — you’re that intelligent. Here’s the link.

“It’s perfectly simple. You need to kill 1.5 million people in Donbass”

Ukrainian Journalist Openly Calls for Genocide on Hromadske TV, Financed by the US and the Netherlands

Preamble: Hromadske TV is now officially the Ukrainian version of Rwandan RTLM. Just like RTLM called for the extermination of the Tutsi, calling them Inyenzi, or cockroaches, so now Hromadske TV is legitimizing the genocide of the population of Novorossiya. From Inyenzi to Colorados, we have come full circle. Hromadske TV, this mouthpiece of Ukrainian genocide, is financed directly by US and Dutch embassies. The blood of the population of Novorossiya is on all our hands – we have allowed this to happen. Please circulate this as widely as you can and stand witness to this Holocaust.

Transcript: “It’s perfectly simple. You need to kill 1.5 million people in Donbass”

Translated from Ukrainian by Valentina Lisitsa

Bogdan Boutkevitch: Ok, you ask me “How can this be happening?” Well, it happens because Donbass, in general, is not simply a region in a very depressed condition, it has got a whole number of problems, the biggest of which is that it is severely overpopulated with people nobody has any use for. Trust me I know perfectly well what I am saying.

If we take, for example, just the Donetsk oblast, there are approximately 4 million inhabitants, at least 1.5 million of which are superfluous. That’s what I mean: we don’t need to [try to] “understand” Donbass, we need to understand Ukrainian national interests.

Donbass must be exploited as a resource, which it is. I don’t claim to have a quick solution recipe, but the most important thing that must be done – no matter how cruel it may sound – is that there is a certain category of people that must be exterminated.
——-

Hromadske TV is Financed Directly by US and Dutch Embassies

Kate, I’m calling you out for a fess up because you’re obviously sympathetic to proven duplicitous liars. Considering that, I now have to reconsider your peace proposal. I’m not so sure I’m willing to concede any part of Eastern Ukraine or Crimea to these craven, deceptive liars. Yes, of course, I know, it’s all lies — but this is terrible lying for all the wrong reasons so I not only don’t endorse it but I stand firmly in opposition to it.

In the meantime, I need the rest of you to do what you can to uncover what I believe may be a Russian conspiracy afoot. My theory, and it’s still a theory until more convincing evidence is accumulated, is that the litany of blogs I’ve mentioned are purposely spreading Russian propaganda. If so, it would be grounds for treason, imo, considering the entire sentiment of their collective messaging. If they’re on Putin’s payroll they have a duty to report that most important fact. If not, and my theory is wrong, how the hell do you explain such irresponsible behavior? Is their hatred that deep and pervasive they’d carry water for the devil himself without solicitation from the devil for that delusionally gracious service? People never cease to amaze. Hatred combined with ego is the most powerfully intoxicating hallucinogen. These people are a danger to themselves and everyone around them.

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33 thoughts on “We Need To Have Another Talk”

To further prove my point, my latest comment with a link to this post over at Ian Stirling Ireland Lang Simeone Celsius Welch‘s blog was deleted in Stalinesque fashion. I said something to the following effect and then provided a link to this post. Does the blog author ever get out of the house to get some fresh air and exercise, or is it standing guard waiting for me and Q. Shtik to post our latest existential threat?

At times like this I ask myself, “what would Neville Chamberlain do?” — and then do something different.

It’s bad enough to block another writer’s material, but then to keep blatantly deceptive endorsements and links to deception such as the following, well, that’s an indictment. Whether the blog author and some of his clown commentariat are on Putin’s payroll is rather a moot point I suppose. The effect is the same. If this was Russia, they’d be shut down in short order — maybe even found dead in a lonely stairway or poisoned with Polonium-210. But it’s not Russia — it’s The West — so they’re free to say what they want and we’re free to call out their lies. Problem is, a lot of people prefer the lies apparently.

Now I’ve studied a lot of military history, especially WW2, but as a necessity that means studying German, British, US, Russia, etc military history, to help understand why certain things were done in certain ways, as much as the ‘what’ (MFI I’ll definitely get that book you recommended a while back, when I have the spare cash, boy it is expensive).

Yes, you are tedious. Propagandists usually are — tedious and tenacious.

Hey, the Sakers usually quite good, give him a break. Besides, he doesnt fake neutrality… His blog is a breath of fresh air compared to most information, lies or not, on the Ukraine palava. When there is soooo much proWashington propaganda out there, ill forgive him this slip-up…

I AM AWARE OF WHAT I AM TALKING. SPEAKING ONLY ABOUT THE DONETSK REGION, THERE ARE APPROXIMATELY 4 MILLION PEOPLE THERE AND AT LEAST 1.5 MILLION OF THEM ARE USELESS PEOPLE. THEY WILL NEVER HAVE A JOB THERE”(…)

What is said in those ellipses? It sounds like he’s setting up an incitement to ethnic cleanse those “useless” people. Not quite as bad as genocide, but still very fucking evil.

Mr Caulfield had you taken just a few minutes of time to do some real work on your own you would not have posted this crap as proof of anything

stopfake.org is clearly a site affiliated with a Ukie Oligarch
watch
“Fact-checking website Stopfake.org was launched on March 2, 2014 by alumni and students of Mohyla School of Journalism and of the Digital Future of Journalism professional program for journalists and editors.”

Nationals whatever of Kiev- but, shows a Kline from Buffalo. New York
” A network of strategic partners brings together representatives of leading Ukrainian and Western media, business, NGOs, research, and educational institutions, allowing us to engage the best experts in the learning process”

strategic partners and No Good Organizations.

Wow, I am so not impressed

But it get’s even better… wait for it

Ukrainian partners

Rinat Akhmetov’s “Development of Ukraine” fund

Rinat Akhmetov’s “Development of Ukraine” fund sponsors two joint projects with Mohyla School of journalism – Digital Future of Journalism (post-diploma course on internet and online journalism for journalsits from leading Ukrainian media outlets) and PhD program in Mass Communication, Digital Media for Universities Programs.

anyone with a modicum of grey matter knows that Rinat is a Ukie Oligarch
wow Mr C , you got it all figured out
LOL

Regardless of the site’s alleged affiliations, look at the proof it has provided. It’s clear, regardless of any bias the authors of the site may or may not possess, that the stories they’ve investigated are lying propaganda being spread by Russian propagandists. Are you that daft to not see what is patently obvious lies being spread by The Saker and his ilk? Don’t answer — I know you are — but rest assured you’re not alone — you have a whole lot of company.

Your source doesn’t present the whole context either. As I pointed out above, they cut around what sounds like a justification for ethnic cleansing. If 1.5 million people are “useless” and will never have jobs, and you think Donbass should be exploited for the good of “national interests” and not the good of the people living there, what else are you going to do with the “excess” population except force them off their land? Which, no so coincidentally, is what the anti-terrorist operation is already doing.

The entire segment should be translated so we can get the complete context.

Hey, the Sakers usually quite good, give him a break. Besides, he doesnt fake neutrality… His blog is a breath of fresh air compared to most information, lies or not, on the Ukraine palava. When there is soooo much proWashington propaganda out there, ill forgive him this slip-up…

Being coy, are you? It’s not his only slip up, here’s another. The question is, with so many slip ups where does one draw the line? What is fact and what is fiction when the source cannot be trusted? Your response is not surprising, though. It’s what I’ve come to expect. People like the lies. That’s what inspired my blog. It’s all lies. And, for the record, I never said The Saker faked neutrality, it’s the others who endorse him as a legitimate, authoritative source who are faking their neutrality.

Here’s the next lie The Saker spread — there are so many I could fill this comment section up with them. Over fifty people have read this blog post thus far and not one of them clicked the link that exposes these lies. Not one. That’s very telling. People only want to read validation for their preconceived notions. It’s called confirmation bias and it’s as thick as the increasingly polluted air we breath these days. I’m going to only provide the links this time to see if people are even interested in the truth, or whether they’re only interested in reading and spreading crappy lies for all the wrong reasons.

Keep in mind, The Saker is affiliated with the blog author Gleb Blazov. Believe it or not, I don’t read The Saker’s blog too thoroughly because I know it’s a complete ruse. It may even be a honey trap run by Western intelligence. It sure would explain how he’s been able to gain the traction he has with that website — it’s more than one person — it’s a team. Even in the off chance I’m wrong, it’s a testament to the superiority of The West versus Russia that this clown can operate a propaganda site such as his from America — the land he so doesn’t love and chastises everyday. No Gulag for this buffoon. Instead, it’s the good life — when he’s not ill which seems to be every other week. He’s frail like Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov’s (Nicholas The Bloody’s) son, Alexei Nikolaevich Romanov before all of them were murdered by the likes of Putin and his minions.

I found Gleb’s site, Slavyangrad.org, when I did a search on Kate Pomeroy after posting the Ukraine Peace Proposal.

Dear Gleb Basov, Igor Strelkov, and Friends of Novorossiya,

I am responding to your reports on the Novorossiya conflict with great sympathy.

FYI, I have forwarded the letter below to several influencial people, and want to let you know of its existence. Please read it with an open mind. I am not asking Novorossiya to present this Proposal, as it might be seen as a compromise. Instead, I’m hoping a neutral or sympathetic foreign government will present it. My hope is for immediate peace in Ukraine and freedom for the Donbass people.

Thank you.

Dear –,

As an American grateful for the peace we’ve enjoyed in this country, I’m concerned about the conflict in Ukraine’s Donbass region, where civilians are perishing daily, towns are besieged without food or water, and young West Ukraine men themselves are dying in battle.

I’m asking for your help in bringing an end to this conflict. Below is a proposed Peace Plan. If you are able to contact those responsible or influential in the region, please kindly pass this on.

Sincerely,
Kathleen A. Rosser

I’m interested in peace for all of Ukraine including Eastern Ukraine. The majority of people in that region, Eastern Ukraine, do not want to secede . They want Ukraine to remain one country and they want more representation and more say in what goes on in Kiev. I’m for that — not for ceding control of Eastern Ukraine to thugs who will be obeisant to Russia despite their signatures to a document they’ll never respect. Strelkov needs to get the hell out of Ukraine. He’s a Russian citizen and is coercing and bullying the citizens of Eastern Ukraine into a fight the majority do not want.

Thank you, Catcher, for publishing my letter to Gleb Basov, to which I had attached the Peace Proposal.

Just for clarity, my real name is Kathleen (Kate) A. Rosser. I show up Kate Pomeroy on this site because that is my default name in this comment software. Pomeroy is the pseudonym I was using for my recent novel (unpublished).

Yes, I did send the proposal to Gleb Basov, because I was unable to find any website for the Donetsk or Lugansk Republics or Novorossiya, and had no way to contact them. I was hoping if he thought it worthy, he would pass it on. Other recipients of my Peace Proposal were Ron Paul, Bill Richardson, Jimmy Carter, Angel Merkel, Vladimir Putin, John Kerry, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Vineyard of the Saker, the OSCE, and the Swiss and Austrian governments. I attempted to send it to the EU, the IMF and the UN, but was unable to make contact.

You said, “I’m interested in peace for all of Ukraine including Eastern Ukraine. The majority of people in that region, Eastern Ukraine, do not want to secede.” I’m very glad you’re interested in peace. And you bring out an excellent point. Although I personally believe 89 to 95% of the Donetsk-Lugansk people voted for independence on May 11, this is very hard to prove, as international observers refused to monitor the polls. So what we need is another vote. Perhaps the Peace Proposal should not assume autonomy for Novorossiya, but should instead require a vote of all people in Donetsk-Lugansk on the question of autonomy. What do you think?

You also said, “People only want to read validation for their preconceived notions.” This is an obstacle for me too. I can tell you are working on it diligently within yourself.

I’ll be more specific, since I assume you’re going to keep ignoring me: I suspect you’re basing this on polling from April. However:

1) Those polls indicated that people proffered more regional autonomy and more federalism to independence or annexation by Russia. Kiev has refused to consider that option, and the polls don’t tell us what people would choose if they could only choose the status quo or independence.

2) Those polls took place before violence started to break out, most notably in the Odessa Trade Union Building fire. That, and the severity of the anti-terrorist operation, undoubtedly hardened the attitudes of a lot of East Ukranians. Polling on the day of the referendum indicated that ~65% favored seceding.

There’s no way the militias would be able to put up a successful defense as they’ve done so far if they had no popular base of support.

It boggles the mind that some of you would be so daft as to continue to argue this even after being presented with solid evidence to the contrary. Use some common sense if you have any remaining. This is a widely broadcast news show and if he said what you contend he said, which he clearly didn’t, then it would have been called out at the time not only by the host of the show but others in the Ukrainian press and the press elsewhere. It wasn’t because there is nothing to call out. The video produced by the Russian media was cut and spliced to present this journalist’s words out of context. His point is that 1.5 million people in the Donbas region out of 4 million are unproductive/unemployed because of the bureaucratic inertia and corruption that exists in the region’s governance and its running of the local and regional economy. His point is that Russia is exploiting the desperation of these people by importing mercenaries to lead local thugs in an separatist insurrection unrepresentative of the people of Donbass and Eastern Ukraine more generally thus provoking Kiev to take action and then holding that action over the heads of Kiev as aggressors and war criminals. The journalist said the people (terrorists) who have foisted themselves on the people of Donbas and are exploiting them for Russian purposes should be killed — not the exploited unproductive/unemployed people. You’re being ridiculously silly to argue otherwise.

But for good measure, how about we get Oksana to translate. Q. Shtik, do you think you can get Oksana to take a look see and provide a quick and dirty (even though she’s a cleaning lady) translation in between cleaning the bathrooms? That’d be great. Thanks for your help in advance. I know I can count on you in a pinch even though this isn’t a pinch.

We don’t know what he thinks should be done about those 1.5 million people because your translation skips over that bit. That doesn’t seem like an oversight to you?

Sure we do. It’s obvious the part left out of the translation was his suggestion that gas chambers and crematoriums be built and these “useless” 1.5 million people be systematically liquidated like the Nazis did to the Jews in WWII and the host was not aghast at this because she’s either heavily dosed on Western anti-depressants or she’s a Nazi herself because all Ukrainians from Western Ukraine, especially Kiev, are Nazis and advocate and pine for genocide.

Speaking of genocide, the word and concept is all the rage lately as a result of the Israeli-Palestinian flare-up. This recent fabrication making the rounds wouldn’t be an attempt to play off that by Russian propagandists, would it now? They had you in mind when they cooked it up. You’re a numbskull — a dolt — a rube — an example of Putin’s thick-headed target audience.

Get real, will you?

And surprise surprise, you fail to back up your claim that Eastern Ukraine is against independence. Just like your namesake, your pretensions to objectivity are just phony, phony, phony.

It’s an opinion. No one can refute it with convincing evidence so it’s as valid as your opinion, and in my opinion, more valid than your opinion considering your poor judgement per the Russian propaganda genocidal hoax video.

I don’t rely on polls since polls are designed to underscore an already advanced conclusion. There are a few local pockets in Eastern Ukraine that are historically separatist but they are a significant minority. The rest of Eastern Ukraine is, for lack of a better word, neutral — just ordinary citizens going about their daily business of trying to put food on the table. And then come the separatist (what Kiev calls the terrorist) thugs with their Russian-supplied weapons roaming the streets intimidating the neutral local populations in Eastern Ukraine whilst provoking the central government in Ukraine to act to squash their fabricated rebellion trying to turn neutral Eastern Ukrainian citizens against a unified Ukraine and towards Balkanization.

Of course, intimidated and threatened formerly neutral citizens are going to say and do what won’t get them tortured and killed at the moment and will keep some food on the table. The people of Eastern Ukraine are essentially held hostage by these lying, terrorist thugs, and this is why it’s essential Ukraine free them from their terrorist captors so they can finally tell the truth about their captivity without fear of retribution from these terrorist thugs Putin’s set loose on them.

While Russians and Chechens are trying to recreate the Soviet Union in Donetsk and Luhansk, angry Odessites are living in abject fear under their hated foreign imposed ‘NAZI JUNTA’ composed of ‘BANDERITES’. These Odessites are undergoing all perverse manner of Ukrainianization (forced usage of the language on the streets, children forced to waive blue & yellow flags and balloons). These mistreated people are warning the world not to vacation in Odessa this year, but instead to plan their visits to ‘liberated’ Donetsk and Luhansk. Knowledge of Russian is not necessary to understand the message of this must see video!

I finally have a few quiet minutes to read your article. You say this edited video was uploaded July 31 by Russian TV channel LifeNews. If it really is a fabrication, I’m glad you’ve brought this out. Vineyard of the Saker should investigate this and make it known for what it is.

You also say you no longer support the Peace Proposal because, “I’m not so sure I’m willing to concede any part of Eastern Ukraine or Crimea to these craven, deceptive liars.” You can’t mean you are unwilling to concede any part of Eastern Ukraine to the Russian TV channel LifeNews. That would be absurd. You must mean you are unwilling to concede any part of Eastern Ukraine to the people of Donbass. Yet, they do not work for LifeNews, and did not create this lie. So what is the connection with them? What is the connection with my Peace Proposal? And what is the connection with me?

Speaking of anti-American blogs like Vineyard of the Saker, you said, “If they’re on Putin’s payroll they have a duty to report that most important fact. If not, and my theory is wrong, how the hell do you explain such irresponsible behavior?” I believe Saker is not on Putin’s payroll, something his commentators lament. He is supported by personal donations, and also, I think, keeps a day job. How do you explain such irresponsible behavior? I don’t know Saker personally, but I imagine he’s trying to build a fire under his blog to keep it roaring. The downside is, he is spawning more hatred, and this does not help to bring peace.

Yet, they do not work for LifeNews, and did not create this lie. So what is the connection with them? What is the connection with my Peace Proposal? And what is the connection with me?

There isn’t one if none of the parties above want there to be. It’s becoming ever more clear to me that autonomy for Donbas is not an effective option. Greater representation and integration with Kiev is the answer for peace. I feel confident the majority of the people in both Donbas and Eastern Ukraine in general know this and want this. Making this region of Ukraine autonomous will lead to further fragmentation and ultimately Balkanization.

This New York Times article does an excellent job of underscoring what I’ve already mentioned above. Hopefully Russia provides an avenue for those who collaborated with the “rebels” to make their way to Russia since that’s what (to be Russians) and where they want to be, but knowing Putin’s track record, he doesn’t respect these people one bit and if they did make their way to Russia, they would be branded with The Scarlet Letter (their file marked “Prone To Treason”).

When Denis Bigunov, a civil servant, recently returned to work after a long break, he found three prisoner’s hoods wrapped in masking tape stashed in his office at City Hall, sinister mementos left behind by the pro-Russian rebels who controlled this eastern Ukrainian city for nearly three months.

He donated the hoods to the local history museum “to remind people what really happened” here after masked gunmen seized control on April 12 and, cheered on initially by many residents, began a brutal drive to create a new order rooted in fanatical loyalty to Russia.

With the city now back in government hands and the Ukrainian military advancing steadily against other nearby settlements that had fallen earlier this year to the pro-Russian cause, Slovyansk has become a test of whether the central government in Kiev can both win on the battlefield and win back the loyalties of its rebellious east.

“We can’t just liberate these places by force of arms but need to change people’s thinking,” said Anton Gerashenko, an Interior Ministry official from Kiev who visited Slovyansk last week. He came to preside over the exhumation of corpses from a mass grave that he said had been left behind by the rebels before they fled south on July 5 to the city of Donetsk, which is still held by separatists.

After a day of digging, workers equipped with a bulldozer and shovels unearthed 14 decomposing bodies, each wrapped in a flimsy white shroud.

As it struggles to secure the consent, if not yet the trust, of Slovyansk’s largely ethnic Russian population, Ukraine has found that its best weapon has been provided by the rebels themselves — a legacy of violent thuggery and chaos that alienated just about everyone.

“It was a horror, a total horror,” said Arkady Glushenko, the chief surgeon at the Lenin Hospital, the city’s biggest. “Nobody wants a repeat of that.”

Another powerful tool in the hands of the Ukrainian authorities is the fear many residents have of retribution for their collaboration with the toppled pro-Russian leadership.

The new authorities, promising anonymity, have set up a hotline for residents to inform on rebel collaborators, and they have printed fliers warning that a new law mandates up to 15 years in jail for separatism. “Of course people are afraid,” Dr. Glushenko said. “They are frightened of being punished.”

Although a firm believer that Ukraine must stay united, and proud of his two sons in the Ukrainian military, the surgeon warned that vengeance against collaborators must be kept in check. He said he had stayed in Slovyansk throughout the period of separatist control and had often treated wounded rebels, not because he wanted to but because he had to. “You don’t argue with a Kalashnikov,” he said.

When the rebels first seized Slovyansk in April, they hoisted Russian flags, arrested the elected mayor, hunted down traitors and proclaimed the city a “great symbol of the struggle for human dignity.” Thousands of residents thronged a large square in front of City Hall to welcome the pro-Russian putsch, chanting “Russia, Russia” and posing for photographs with gunmen they hailed as their saviors from the fascists who had seized power in Kiev with the February ouster of President Victor F. Yanukovych, a Russian-speaker from Donetsk.

After pro-Russian gunmen fled as the Ukrainian military advanced, many of the same people rushed into the same square to greet Ukrainian military trucks as soldiers handed out free food. Virtually nobody now admits to having supported the separatists.

“They are happy to welcome whoever gives them food,” said Konstantin Batozsky, an aide to the Kiev-appointed governor of the Donetsk region, which includes Slovyansk.

The Ukrainian authorities have restored electricity, water, salaries to municipal workers and pension payments to the older Ukrainians, who now make up around half the city’s shrunken population of roughly 80,000, around two-thirds the number who lived here before the rebels took control.

They have also flooded the city with troops, some of them poorly trained irregulars, and strengthened the local police force — its loyalty somewhat suspect — with officers from western regions of Ukraine where anti-Russian sentiment is strong.

Ukraine has been helped in an odd way by Russia, whose tightly controlled news media has issued a series of hair-raising stories alleging Ukrainian atrocities that have made locals only more wary of bucking the new authorities. LifeNews, a Russian television channel, broadcast a report titled “Witch Hunting,” saying that Slovyansk was being turned into a huge prison camp like Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where the United States detains terrorists. Channel One, in a particularly gruesome piece of propaganda, reported that Ukrainian troops had crucified a 3-year-old boy in front of his mother in the central square.

Even locals who detest the Ukrainian government in Kiev, the capital, dismiss the crucifixion story as a grotesque lie. Until the Russian TV report, nobody here had ever heard of any such incident.

True or not, Russian propaganda has helped halt open resistance to the new Ukrainian order. Residents who actively supported the rebels have nearly all fled.

“You would have to be an idiot to stay here,” Lybova Nazarayeva, the director of an orphanage that suffered heavy damage when Ukrainian forces began shelling a rebel base next door, said of the pro-Russian residents. “You would only get killed or arrested. They all left for Donetsk.”

Loudspeakers atop City Hall, used by the rebels to play Soviet-era martial music, now blast Ukrainian state radio. Big posters have gone up across the city proclaiming that “Slovyansk is Ukraine.”

But long-closed Soviet-era factories that once dominated the local economy are still rotting away and many other businesses have shut, their premises scarred by shrapnel and bullets. There is no mood of joyous celebration at what Ukrainian officials trumpet as the city’s “liberation.”

Anger and animosity bubbles just below the calm surface. In each workplace, everyone knows who did what during rebel rule, creating poisonous currents of suspicion.

Nikolai Mishkin, a technician at a communal heating plant here, said his boss had worked zealously with the rebels, even inviting them to store their armor in the plant’s courtyard and climb its brick chimney to scout Ukrainian military positions. “He was very aggressive in his enthusiasm,” Mr. Mishkin said, adding that he had not seen his boss since Ukraine’s forces arrived.

Local residents who suffered under rebel rule complain that Ukrainian authorities have not done enough to punish residents who sided with the separatists. A group of local pro-Ukrainian activists gathered outside City Hall last week to demand a thorough purge of all officials who collaborated with the rebels.

The only prominent figure who is known to have been arrested so far by the Ukrainians is Nelly Schtepa, the former mayor, who initially supported the pro-Russian gunmen but then spent nearly three months locked up by the rebels in City Hall. She is now being held by Ukrainian authorities in Kharkiv, the largest city in eastern Ukraine, awaiting trial on charges of separatism.

Interviewed last week by monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Ms. Schtepa admitted making statements that supported the rebel cause but said she had been forced to do so by her rebel captors, who she said had beaten and tortured her. A rebel-designated “people’s mayor” who replaced her is missing and is widely believed to have escaped to Donetsk.

The organization for security said the Kharkiv detention center where Ms. Schtepa was being held now was clean and well-kept, unlike the filthy City Hall cellar where she and many other prisoners had been held. Rebels also used that basement for target practice, leaving the floor littered with spent cartridges.

The new police chief of Slovyansk, Igor Ribalchenko, said investigators had started collecting information about residents suspected of actively supporting the rebels but added that the widespread collaboration of ordinary people would not be punished.

“Most people were simply afraid because there were armed terrorists walking around” and they had no choice but to obey, he said. He said that eight police officers who had openly sided with the rebels had fled. An Interior Ministry commission is investigating the rest of the 300-member force. The police chief added that he saw no need for a sweeping purge of the force, despite the fact that its officers put up no resistance when rebels seized the city and then helped them solidify their power.

This cautious stand has infuriated people like Victor Butko, the owner of a printing business and editor of a small local newspaper shut by the rebels. Grabbed by pro-Russian gunmen before the arrival of Ukrainian troops, he was held for days in a fetid cellar beneath the local headquarters of the state security service.

Passing three police officers guarding the mass grave left by the rebels last week, Mr. Butko cursed them for not resisting the separatists, shouting: “You are to blame for all this. You all did nothing. You should have picked up your guns and shot them.”

The officers looked at their feet nervously.

As some residents who fled during the rebel occupation trickle back home, a semblance of normal life slowly returns. But, Mr. Butko predicted it would take a generation before Slovyansk shook off its flirtation with Russian nationalism. “The biggest problem here is not economics or anything physical,” he said. “It is moral. The problem here is in people’s heads.”

You said, “It’s becoming ever more clear to me that autonomy for Donbas is not an effective option. Greater representation and integration with Kiev is the answer for peace.”

Operationally, an effective “answer for peace” is that which ends the killing, ie an agreement all parties are willing to sign. My concern about “greater representation and integration with Kiev” is, the pro-Novorossiyans would not sign such a Plan, as my Peace Proposal explains.

An effective Peace Proposal is not that which pleases you, nor me, nor the New York Times, nor the US State Department, nor Russia, nor the EU, nor Poroshenko, nor the pro-Novorossiyans. It is that which is most likely to be signed. The challenge is to find such a proposal. It is a complex puzzle, given the polarization of viewpoints.

Victor Butko below is at the heart of my divination. The New York Times article above does an excellent job of explaining the situation and it jibes with what my common sense, something of a rarity for most people these days and certainly absent in you, told me.

This cautious stand has infuriated people like Victor Butko, the owner of a printing business and editor of a small local newspaper shut by the rebels. Grabbed by pro-Russian gunmen before the arrival of Ukrainian troops, he was held for days in a fetid cellar beneath the local headquarters of the state security service.

Passing three police officers guarding the mass grave left by the rebels last week, Mr. Butko cursed them for not resisting the separatists, shouting: “You are to blame for all this. You all did nothing. You should have picked up your guns and shot them.”

The officers looked at their feet nervously.

As some residents who fled during the rebel occupation trickle back home, a semblance of normal life slowly returns. But, Mr. Butko predicted it would take a generation before Slovyansk shook off its flirtation with Russian nationalism. “The biggest problem here is not economics or anything physical,” he said. “It is moral. The problem here is in people’s heads.”

There is more to the conflict than the New York Times might say. Most people living in parts of East and South Ukraine, though they carry Ukrainian passports, are historically Russian. The Ukraine under the USSR was effectively one nation with Russia, and was technically belonged to Russia for centuries before that. After 1989, Ukraine became a separate country, and the Russia-Ukraine border now separates extended families.

The situation is similar to that of post WWII Germany, to the Everest region at the China-Nepal border, and to the Kurdish territories of Iraq, Iran and Turkey. Naturally, these families do not like borders between them, and long for unity. There is heartfelt public support in Donetsk and Lugansk for the pro-Russian forces, and while this feeling is not universal, many in the region distrust the Kiev government. To them, absorption into Ukraine is unacceptable.

Sounds like he has a good reason to be angry at the rebels, but that has zero bearing on whether people in East Ukraine support them or not. Again, there’s no way they’d have been able to put up as an effective defense as they have if they didn’t have a base of support.

Sorry, we interrupt this broadcast to deposit the following comment from The Welch Committee’s latest blog post here for safe keeping since Welch has a penchant for deleting and overwriting comments. The Welch Committee and Putin have some things in common with one prominent exception; Putin’s file isn’t marked “Prone to Treason.” Traitors beware.

Russia is cornered and will, must, at some point strike back. I am astounded at the restraint shown so far.

Cornered how? It’s making money hand over fist — so much so, it doesn’t know what to do with it all so it’s taking that excess profit and investing it in making weapons and building its military so it can expand into surrounding areas and regions and usurp said regions’ wealth and resources instead of reinvesting the immense profits from artificially high oil prices constructively back into its own “creative” economy and infrastructure.

Many decry that America is letting its infrastructure go to pot, and I agree, it is, but so too is Russia and in Russia’s case it’s more egregious because Russia is not a creditor nation. It has money in the bank — a significant amount in the bank — and considering the artificially high price of oil isn’t going away anytime soon if ever, it’s got huge wealth reserves in the ground. Therefore, it has no excuse not to transform its infrastructure into a state of the art paradigm for all the world to emulate. Instead, it tries to contend with America for military supremacy which is superfluous. America is the enforcement division of the WWON (World Wide Oligarch Network). Perhaps Putin has a problem with that and wants to shake up the arrangement, but if that’s the case, it’s being done at the expense of the Russian people and all the Small People the world over. Two imperialists are not better than one. Three are not better than two and one and so forth and so on.

For anyone who claims to be anti-imperialist, you must be anti-tyranny first because imperialism is borne of tyranny. You don’t fight imperialism with tyranny because ultimately all you’ll get in return is more imperialism.

3. The NSDC [National Security and Defense Council] reported today that servicemen of Ukrainian military units who went to serve in the Armed Forces of Russia after the annexation of Crimea, were recognized as “prone to treason.” This entry is made in the personnel files of the traitors after their [Russian] certification results.

We talked about this back in March. Who would believe someone who has once betrayed already? [Being] a traitor is a mark for a lifetime, and no bootlicking or grovelling will wash it off.

With Ukraine’s military tightening a cordon around this city controlled by separatist rebels, Oleg Grishin found himself enlisted on Monday in one of their schemes for its defense: the forced labor of drunks, drug addicts and curfew violators to dig trenches and build barriers.

Glum-looking detainees, seized by the rebel authorities for minor infractions, dig ditches, fill sandbags, clear brush and peel potatoes. More serious violations have been met with summary executions, according to some rebel leaders.

Igor Girkin, a former Russian intelligence officer and now the separatist defense minister who uses the name Igor Strelkov, or Igor the Shooter, has declared a state of siege in the city and said he is now the “military commandant” of Donetsk. He promulgated an order allowing militants to commandeer private vehicles, medical supplies and whatever else is needed for the war effort, further putting residents on edge.

In Donetsk, the detainee crews are called “punishment brigades.” Along with the artillery craters in outlying districts, these detainees form part of the new cityscape. Often, the men are forced to work stripped to their underwear.

The rebel commander, known by his nickname, Lukich, said he treated the detainees humanely. The practice achieves two objectives, he said, imposing the social rules infused with Russian Orthodox Christian values of the new state, while helping the city’s defenses. Drug addicts are summarily sentenced to trench digging.

“If they cause some harm to society, we keep them here for 15 days,” he said. “They live with us, they work, and they realize their mistakes.”

Maksim Bondar, 22, was forced to dig after his estranged girlfriend complained to militants that he had threatened her in a custody dispute over their daughter. “She complained to the militia, and I ended up here,” he said. “The commander said, ‘You need to marry her if you want rights to your child,’ and so I dug trenches.”

Bogdan Forsenko, 25, said he was riding his bicycle after curfew carrying a jerrycan of gasoline for his car, and was picked up for appearing suspicious. He sweated in the same fetid clothes he wore that night last week, and said he did not know if his relatives knew his whereabouts.

“There’s a war, and I had gasoline,” he said, also interviewed with a militant gunman nearby. “What can I say, they didn’t like it.”

For now, no court is needed, the commander known as Lukich said, because many detainees confess. More serious offenders go to a secret-police building in Donetsk that is a headquarters for Mr. Strelkov.

Outside that building is a scene of despair. Dozens of women seeking sons or husbands mill about behind a sandbag barrier for a grim nightly ritual. The warden of the makeshift prison emerges to read out family names of the detained, usually numbering about 50.

“Everybody says we should have gotten out,” said Olya Leonova, who was waiting for news of her brother, Pyotr Dyomin, who is 51, has two children and has not been answering his phone. He could be in a punishment brigade, she said. “I’m hoping that’s where he is now — in his underwear, digging. At least then I would know where he is.”

Svetlana Rozova, a psychologist who works with refugees in Ukrainian territory for an aid group, Dnepr Help, described in a telephone interview treating former detainees. Some are held in basements for weeks. Some patients had fingernails pulled out or were beaten severely enough to break ribs. “They all arrive in a state of shock,” she said. “They don’t understand what has happened to them, they don’t accept it. They are crying. They are fearful, aggressive. This is not a small matter. People’s psychological health is broken by these experiences.”

Welcome to the Meat Grinder — in Donetsk the meat is triple ground or more.

The “terrorist” rebels hide themselves amongst the civilians like cowards (Hamas tactic), so how else do you expect the Ukrainian military to get them out? Ask them nicely to come out and fight honorably like real warriors? Ha!

This is precisely why these terrorists and their collaborators should be brought to justice as war criminals. They have brought this on the people of Eastern Ukraine caught in the crossfire. They must be held to account. I’m sure the Ukrainian military doesn’t find what they have to do pleasant in anyway and would rather the cowards either give themselves up or come out and fight like warriors rather than using innocents as shields.

I left a lot out of the article, not just what you mention. There is no non-civilian when an opposition uses guerrilla warfare tactics but instead of hiding behind trees and rocks, it hides behind innocent men and women as shields.

I’ll state this one more time for the record and then no longer haggle with you over it or belabor this point incessantly. It’s clear to me the majority of the people of Eastern Ukraine, with a small minority as an exception, are neutral in this inculcated conflict foisted upon them by Putin and the war criminal, Strelkov. That small minority are the collaborators who support the cowardly war criminal, Igor Girkin. The remainder of the population is bullied, coerced and terrorized into cooperating even if only minimally just to get by on a daily basis. For that, I can’t blame them, although I would have liked to have seen more of what I am quoting below per my satirical From Dima In East Ukraine blog post.

If you can’t see that, it’s because you’re blinded by rage and hate and like many with the Palestinian plight, you want the largely neutral Eastern Ukrainians to fight your fight rather than you fighting your fight yourself. You and your ilk prefer to fight your armchair battles by proxy using innocent people as fodder to foment your rage and hatred against — against what exactly? I’ll tell you what — against your dispossession and flaccid impotence, that’s what. Get over there and fight your own battles, you coward, rather than relying on people who want no part of it. You are a complicit collaborator with war crimes and war criminals and should be brought to heel right along with Strelkov. You’re even worse than most who collaborate with The Pickle in Eastern Ukraine, because you have no excuse whatsoever in supporting a murdering sadistic war criminal from your comfortable armchair as innocent people are caught in a crossfire unnecessarily. You’re a pathetic piece of cowardly cyber garbage complicit in war crimes.

Dear Mr. coldenfeld,

You are with much thanks for yor blog catcher of fly. joy is much you bring to me and mine for said things yor blog. The Sucker of the barnyard of the forsaken is evil man. Hell will he go. he is dirty liar. Comments to suckers ugly blog too liars. No respect they have ukrainians. Russians think they better. Russians not better Ukrainians. All equal. most russians liars.

ukrainians not fighting ukrainians. Russian want Ukrainians kill ukrainians. Ukrainians won’t. russia send murders to ukraine to kill ukraines and blame Київ. these mercenary are enemie. me family and neighbors kill them when we get chance. ask that all ukraines do same. kill invaders from russian. they want kill us. we protect our people. we not like kill. but we kill to protect ukraines. to protect home. to protect town. to protect city. to protect country.

we share much russia with. In lot of common. share culture. but not same. like. not exact match. we not mind russian neighbor. we not want be russia. russia stay in russia borders. ukraine stay in ukraine border. Ukraine not russia. never.

news not truth. not so much fighting. people shop. ukraines go to work. ukraines live normal. sometimes gunfire. not so much. sometimes smoke and booms. not so much. russian mercs all places. just appear. not from here. We kill them one by one. butcher them like pigs. putin send. little man must pay. Uses Ukrainians as shields. cowards. hide behind women and children. provoke Київ attack ukraines east. blame on Київ.

airstrike was putin. not ukraine jets. russian missiles. blame Київ.

ukraines not must let russian win. russian and putin cheaters. cowards. play dirty. never believe russian. some honest. only few. most liars.

Many young want free ukraine. old ones like russian. think better pension. putin lies. pensions not be better. old ones listen not. young ones help kill russian mercs. chechens love war. they only know murder. come to ukraine to murder. we kill them. one at a time now. soon three four five six more at time. they will leave. in body bags. in coffins. go home cowards. don’t come cowards.

thank you mr. Coldenfeld understanding. lies everywhere. No one true. we talk soon.

I hate to disagree with you, but when someone says a portion of the population should be killed, and then cites 1.5 million as “useless people,” the smart money says he plans to kill 1.5 million people. That’s barely interpretation – at best, this moron can claim he mis-spoke (but calling 1.5 million people “useless” remains off-the-charts inflammatory, especially since Kiev wants to rule these people).

I find it amazing that the mainstream media (which has taken to pathetic attempts to seem cool, such as adopting names like Daily Beast) is trying so hard to pull off this confidence trick of asserting that its depiction of events is accurate – even as the former allies we lionized in Syria now topple our Iraqi puppets and any fool can see the real world economy is crumbling while TV news reports blithe lies about inflation and unemployment. It has nothing to do with being “pro-Russian” or “anti-American.” People look for news online because our media and institutions have plainly failed. You’d have to be a moron to believe commentary on CNN or Fox.